Handling multiline set-env when command errors out #26405

latacora-tomekr · 2020-11-04T19:46:42Z

latacora-tomekr
Nov 4, 2020

I have the following step defined

      - name: Multiline Test
        id: multiline
        run: |
          echo 'MULTILINE_OUTPUT<<EOF' >> $GITHUB_ENV
          a-command-that-can-fail >> $GITHUB_ENV
          echo 'EOF' >> $GITHUB_ENV
        continue-on-error: true

In this case, a-command-that-can-fail may or may not throw an exit code. I’d like the workflow to continue executing and display the command error. However, it appears that if a-command-that-can-fail throws an exit code, the step stops executing the rest of the run. Therefore, echo 'EOF' >> $GITHUB_ENV never runs and I can not access the output.

Is there a recommended way to handle this?

Answered by latacora-tomekr

Nov 5, 2020

Yea the tricky bit here is that I actually want the step to result in a failed status which I surface in a PR message. I ended up getting passed this by writing the output to a temporary file and reading it the next step.

     - name: Multiline Test
        id: multiline
        run: |
          a-command-that-can-fail > "$RUNNER_TEMP/output.txt"
        continue-on-error: true

Then I retrieved the contents in the next step with actions/github-script

            const tempDirectory = process.env['RUNNER_TEMP']
        const fs = require('fs').promises
        const planContents = await fs.readFile(`${tempDirectory}/output.txt`, {encoding: 'utf8'})

View full answer

Simran-B · 2020-11-04T23:06:18Z

Simran-B
Nov 4, 2020

Depending on the command, there might be a built-in option to disable the non-zero exit code, but as you are interested in this code, one of these options might do what you want:

<a href="https://github.community/t/github-actions-using-grep-when-no-lines-selected/126719/4">GitHub Actions: using grep when no lines selected</a> <a class="badge-wrapper  bullet" href="/c/code-to-cloud/github-actions/41"><span class="badge-category-parent-bg" style="background-color: #6a737d;"></span><span class="badge-category-bg" style="background-color: #2188ff;"></span><span style="" data-drop-close="true" class="badge-category clear-badge" title="Discussion and questions about GitHub Actions—automation for all of your development workflows, now with world-class CI/CD.">GitHub Actions</span></a>

You can also do one of the following:
echo "foo" | grep "bar" || true

set +e
echo "foo" | grep "bar"
set -e

run: |
echo "foo" | grep "bar"
continue-on-error: true

Perhaps use a Custom shell that doesn’t fail if a command returns a non-zero exit code (-eo pipefail removed)

0 replies

latacora-tomekr · 2020-11-05T00:24:41Z

latacora-tomekr
Nov 5, 2020
Author

Yea the tricky bit here is that I actually want the step to result in a failed status which I surface in a PR message. I ended up getting passed this by writing the output to a temporary file and reading it the next step.

     - name: Multiline Test
        id: multiline
        run: |
          a-command-that-can-fail > "$RUNNER_TEMP/output.txt"
        continue-on-error: true

Then I retrieved the contents in the next step with actions/github-script

            const tempDirectory = process.env['RUNNER_TEMP']
        const fs = require('fs').promises
        const planContents = await fs.readFile(`${tempDirectory}/output.txt`, {encoding: 'utf8'})

0 replies

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Handling multiline set-env when command errors out #26405

latacora-tomekr Nov 4, 2020

Replies: 2 comments

Simran-B Nov 4, 2020

latacora-tomekr Nov 5, 2020 Author

latacora-tomekr
Nov 4, 2020

Simran-B
Nov 4, 2020

latacora-tomekr
Nov 5, 2020
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